Well, it's been almost 13 months since I've posted a blog regarding our journey to our home. I'm not real sure if anyone even reads the blog posts but I thought I'd post an update.

 

We lived in the horse trailer for 7 months through the last half of summer, the fall and most of the winter. To be more precise, from July 01 - February 01.  We went through the home buying process with a beautiful home on 14 acres in Madisonville that ended up falling through in January.  We were stressed, disappointed, worn out, you name it....

 

While we were living in the horse trailer, we were also living behind Brandon's Nana's house.  This is where I spent most of my time.  She opened her home up to us that gave us access to a washer & dryer, the kitchen, her bathroom when we ran out of propane... And just good company on a lot of nights that Brandon was working.  I will always cherish the time I was allowed to spend with her.  At the same time, I was getting to the point where I was ready to move out of the horse trailer.  I cant take away from the convenience it provided and the money we were able to save by staying in it but I was over it and we were back to square one on the home buying/building.  It was time for a change!

 

I drove up to Huntsville for a girls night one night.  I was going to stay the night because we were going to dinner and then to a late movie. Brandon was working and wasn't home so why not? On the way to the movie my girlfriend offered for Brandon and I to stay at her and her husbands house. They have detached  "Mother-In-Law" quarters and said that we were welcome to come and stay there if were wanted to get out of the trailer.  I was definitely interested and would be "talking" it over with Brandon first chance!

We moved in on February first! Heres a little glimpse of our new living quarters.

 

 The Kitchen

 The Living Area

 The Bedroom

The Bathroom

 

Pretty nice huh?

 

I can't even begin to tell you how lucky I felt to have this much space! I had room to stretch! I didn't waste any time moving our things from the trailer, which wasn't too much....

 

 

Macy was pretty excited too!

 

In the meantime Brandon will continue looking for our Promised Land and I will make this little apartment into our (temporary) home.

 

 

Trailer Royalty!

Well, we are officially living in the horse trailer!  On June 25th we moved the final necessities that kept us from being able to stay at the house another day. Our plan was to move a little at a time as we had the time so as not to be overwhelmed by it. After the fact it seems that we've been moving for 8 weeks! We knew the new residents would not be moving in until the middle to end of July so that gave us time to spread it out.

When I tell people we are living in the living quarters of a horse trailer I get interesting responses... mostly just smiles and nods! Ha ha ha! You see, I don't think it would be possible for us to do this with kids and the space is quite nice. We have a king size bed :-D, kitchenette with a sink & 2 burner stove-top, couch, TV, separate bathroom with a sink, toilet, stand up shower and closet! It's compact but we aren't lacking! We have some of our things in the back of the trailer where the horses ride when we travel. It can get a little cramped if we are up and getting showered/dressed at the same time but we manage. Macy, our 4-legged child, isn't too fond of the lack of inside playing space. She's not sure how she's supposed to play with her toys, or lack-thereof, in such a small space. But she does enjoy our new outdoor space.




After we got things moved in but not put away!
Looks like the Harrell House threw up inside the trailer!




Macy chilling on the bed!


The first few nights were an adjustment for us between getting everything put away in the space we have. One of the biggest things I have tried to do is organize it the best way possible to make it easier. I think it will all fall into place and get easier each day. All of the different organizing tools and tricks out there help a lot!

The pictures below are NOT pictures of our home but are pretty similar to it in order to give you an idea of our cozy living accommodations!



The entrance door is to the left, couch on the right, king size bed up top!




Stand-up shower on left, closet on right with drawer under!




From entrance door... bed on left, kitchenette on right. Couch will fold out as bed!





Pretty cozy and nice! We also have our full-size refrigerator outside, but covered, to hold our groceries which is very convenient! 

Now that we have gotten moved into the trailer, we are concentrating on getting the house ready for the renters to move in. Brandon has done a few things himself and we have carpet cleaners coming next week, etc. Once we get past this transition, we will concentrate on getting bids on our house plans so that we will know about how much land to look for! We will go from there! 

Have a Safe & Happy 4th of July!  





My house looks like a pig stye!

This past weekend was very productive! Well sort of... Saturday was planned to be a big packing day for us since Brandon was off work however, it was productive in other ways. We went to the gym, the grocery store and I'm not too sure what else we did but it wasn't packing! Actually I did get my clothes separated from what I was taking to the trailer and what was going to be packed. I got the clothes packed that I'm not taking to the trailer! Woo hoo! My sweet sister n law had plans to come over and help me pack but she didn't make it over until that evening and her fiance came as well. So we had dinner with them and visited instead of packing! Ha Ha! We had a great time and enjoyed it more than packing anyway. We needed an evening to chill and hang out.
So on Sunday I decided to skip the annual fish fry in Trinity with the Woodsons so that I could get some packing done since Brandon was at the fire dept working. Thankful that I was off work on Monday for Memorial Day, I went to packing! I had a room full of boxes packed and ready to move so on Monday morning after Brandon got off work we loaded up the trailer with the boxes that we had packed and took them to the storage. Since Brandon didn't have to work on Tuesday I took the day off so that we could pack & move more. We spent the whole day packing up most everything in the house that was able to be packed into a box. The kitchen took the longest with all the things that had to be wrapped up. We have a LOT of glass items! Since it took most of the day to pack boxes it was that evening before we got it all moved.
So now we are living on the necessities at our house. We are using the things that we plan to take with us to the trailer. I'm talking, plastic plates and bowls, 2 spoons, 2 forks, etc. Just the minimal. It's quite different! It's also a mess! There are so many miscellaneous items in our "back room", the entrance we use to the house because it's next to the carport, that are waiting to be boxed. These are items that are small pieces of furniture to oddly shaped items I haven't decided how to box yet. It's driving me crazy! :-) But not too bad because it doesn't seem as if I've at home in the evenings long enough let it bother me too bad.

So this coming weekend Brandon will be gone and wont be home until Sunday evening. He left early this morning for the fire dept and will leave this evening for Ft. Worth for training. I will be leaving the house early in the morning to run a 5k race in Sugar Land. Hopefully I will have time Saturday evening and Sunday to work on some more packing.

Next weekend, a week from today, we will most likely be moving the rest of the furniture that we have at the house that we are keeping. I am thinking by then we will be staying in the trailer. We've got to get it moved into place and set up still!

Everything is moving right along!

The Joys of Moving....

I'm pretty excited to say that we have started the wonderful process of packing and moving!  I've had some boxes packed for a while but that was simply for showing purposes. Once we got confirmation of renters and a move-in date for them I stopped packing and keeping the house "show-ready"! Our renters are going to be moving in at the end of July so I knew I had a couple of weeks of being able to go back to "normal" living in our house before it got tore up with boxes and we started moving. I enjoyed not having to worry about it for a little while although I can't say that it still wasn't in the forefront of my mind. Mostly planning and figuring it all out on exactly when we were going to move what and to where, storage or trailer! Come the middle of May I started looking at the calendar and Brandon's work schedule. I realized that moving was going to have to happen a little bit earlier than I thought because of schedules and wanting to have time before the renters move in to clean up.
Today Brandon and a friend are moving our bedroom and livingroom furniture into a storage unit so we will be sleeping in the guest room. We decided to get the storage unit now because they were getting low on units. Brandon also spent the day before packing up a bunch of clothes on his day off.  So the house is officially looks and is in moving transistion!
This coming weekend is designated as my offical packing weekend. It's Memorial Day weekend and I'll have 3 days to get a lot done! From this weekend through the 8-9th of June we will be moving our things into storage and plan to be in the trailer by that weekend of the 9th of June. That will give us time to have everything out and the house cleaned up for the renters by the end of July!

I'm sure this will be me before it's all said & done!

Answered Prayers!!

So last week I posted on facebook a call out to anyone that was able and willing to take in my two outside cats temporarily while we are living in the horse trailer. I stated that Brandon and I would be moving soon and needed to start looking for arrangements for them. Of course everyone wanted to know about the moving part and I didn't really get anywhere with the cats. I have been thinking about what to do with them for a while now but I just kept my faith in God that something would work out for the best for them. Right after I posted the status on facebook, a really good friend of mine, Amber, sent me a text saying that she thought we were selling the house (apparently she hasn't gotten caught up on my blog here!). I then told her that we HAVE had it for sale for the past 6 months now and were about to list it for lease.   
So, she is texting me questions about our house, how many bedrooms, how many baths, etc. She said that she was REALLY wanting an additional room and in our house we have a room that can be used as another bedroom, living room, exercise room, playroom... you name it.  I told her that Brandon and I would talk about it that evening and also have them over to look.  Brandon said that we could try and work something out with them. We were able to talk to them that evening about it and I got a text from her the next day saying they decided that they wanted rent the house! Woo Hoo! She said the only problem was that their lease wasnt up until August sometime. I told her that was okay with us, God has this planned out.  We arent in a huge hurry to move, just needed to know if they wanted it so we would know if we needed to list it.
As of today she has told me that she has notified her landlord that they will be out by July 31st! This will give us plenty of time to get all of our things sorted out. We have to put things in climate control, non climate control and then what will stay with us in the horse trailer. It will be a job.

As I open the Bible to look for a verse that goes along with this post, it opens to Psalm 25 and these verses all jump out at me:

"The Lord always proves faithful and reliable to those who follow the demands of his covenant." Psalm 25:10

"The Lord shows his faithful followers the way they should live. They experience his favor; their decendants inherit the land. The Lord's loyal followers receive his guidance, and he reveals his covenantal demands to them." Psalm 25:12-14

This one really spoke to me for it is an issue I have dealt with during this whole process of waiting for step after step to follow through:
Wait patiently for the Lord! Wait confidently for Him! Do not fret over the apparent success of a sinner, a man who carries out wicked schemes!" Psalm 37:7


And everyone knows this one:
"For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord. 'I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope." Jeremiah 29:11

Lucy

Cotton

My sweet girls will now be able to stay in their familiar home! <3 They were both rescues, Cotton from a neighbor of Amber, where she was weeks old and surrounded by numerous other animals, infested with fleas and eye infections; Lucy was rescued by the public works crew with the city of Oak Ridge North, placed in a box and put on my desk! It had been raining a lot and we were having some minor flooding. She was found by our water plant, holed up trying to weather the storm. She fit in my hand she was so tiny. They took to each other like a mamma taking in her own that had been lost.
We also know that things happen, things change... if for some unknown reason the cats can't stay or Amber & Jarvis aren't able to rent our house, God will work something out.

Where are Yall building???

This question comes to me about as much as the question of when we're going to have kids... maybe more. And it usually follows this question "Have y'all bought any land yet?".  The answer is No and No. We don't know the EXACT location that we are going to build. We are interested in the west side of Walker County. We are not at the step in our plans to purchase any land yet therefore we are holding off on even looking because we do not know how long each step will take. If we would have looked right after we listed the house for sale, counting on it selling, we would have been sorely disappointed along with paying two mortgages if we would have found something we loved and bought it. If we would have found something we loved but didn't buy yet because our house had not sold yet then we took the chance of it not being for sale when the house sold. So, with that being said, I think we have made the right decision in being patient and waiting for a transition with our current house first, especially since it didn't sell! Also, we are not dead set on the west side of Walker County either. When the time comes for us to pick out some land, we will look at everything outside of Montgomery County. The reason that we are not planning on looking at anything in Montgomery County is the fact that it is SO expensive!! We wouldn't be able to afford the amount of land that we'd like in MC as we would in WC. Once we get renters in our house and we get moved into the horse trailer we will then take our time going and looking at land. We are also planning on purchasing our land/home construction in one loan. That is why we haven't just gone out and bought some land. Brandon hasn't decided how much land to buy either, but will be between 7 and 15 acres. We do have house plans drawn up though! We went to a referred architect a year and a half ago and had them drawn up. We thought we were closer to building than we were. We also have a look that we like a lot. We arent sure if we will be able to have the stone or not. Will just have to see when we start getting estimates and costs.

Right now we don't think we will have the stone all the way to the top, possible only around the bottom about 2' up. The rest will be hardiplank. But this is the vision we have in mind for our house. Ours will probably be a little bit longer.

Getting closer!

The horse trailer is ready to be picked up & we got the materials for the roof delivered this morning! Brandon and I are going to have a date night tonight and leave tomorrow morning to go pick up the trailer and on Thursday the crew will be at the house to put a new roof on our house! Yippee!

The roof has been about a 5 week discussion... It was a decision on whether to try and do it ourselves with some help or hire someone to do it. Brandon got three different bids to do it and he also went and priced the materials to do it. We thought it would be best to do it ourselves... we would have plenty of help and Brandon would have the time off and we would save some money. I was anxious to get it scheduled and asked Brandon a couple of times if he had looked at his schedule to see when the best time for him to do it was. Of course there was also getting other guys to schedule it too. One morning he told me he was going to go buy all of the materials for it, that way he'll get it done quicker. His words, not mine and I agreed with him... mentally. So later that morning he called me and was telling me that before he left the house he really sat down and figured up the numbers. He basically told me that he didnt feel like we would save all that much by doing it ourselves with all of the time that would go into it also. I had started to see the roof project becoming very stressful for us so I agreed with him and told him to just call the roofer he felt would be best and get it scheduled. He made contact with the roofer this past Saturday and said he would have the materials delivered this week and agreed to work with Brandon's schedule so that he could be there when they were there. The materials were being delivered before I left for work this morning and Brandon sent me a message later saying that they would be replacing the roof THIS Thursday! Woot Woot!

• Horse trailer repaired & ready to live in - Check!
• Bathrooms painted - Check!
• Roof scheduled - Check!

This past weekend I started packing up things that we dont use every day like the closets in our back two bedrooms. And, our realtor contract on our house expires is coming week so we can re-list it for lease! It's the first day of May and will be the perfect time for people to be moving since it will be summer time and in between school years! It has been a whirlwind of a year between Brandon graduating from fire training last April, getting a job, getting a nephew, and all of the progress on our house! Our blessing are abundant! Praise the Lord!